CHAPTER XXVII[ToC]
THE BETRAYAL OF THE SECRET COMMITTEE. A MEMORABLE DAY OF TROUBLE
It was only a few days after the van Warmelos had parted from Mr. Botha that Mr. J. Joubert arrived at Harmony with the tidings that four men had again entered the town that night. One of them was a lad of nineteen, young Erasmus, whose parents had been killed by lightning when he was a child, and to whom Mrs. Joubert had been a second mother.
When he arrived at their home that night they were very angry with him, and demanded what he meant by coming into the very heart of danger.
He meekly answered that he had merely come to see how they were all getting on, and to spend a few days at home, casually remarking that there was a dearth of horse-shoe nails on commando, and that he had been ordered to bring some out.
He and his comrades knew nothing of the recent betrayal, and it was their good fortune that they had used an entirely different route, coming through Skinner's Court. They had not seen a single guard.
Besides the horse-shoe nails, there was the usual demand for clothing and European and Colonial newspapers.
Mrs. van Warmelo immediately made a parcel of the cuttings which she and her friends had been collecting for some time past, and wrote a tiny note to Mr. Greyling, warning him and his fellows against coming in through the usual way, which was now guarded, and informing him that his name had been betrayed. This note was hidden in a match-box with a double false bottom, covered with matches, and given to Erasmus to be handed to Greyling.
Since the revelations made, it was not safe to see the spies, nor was it known by whom the match-box had been sent.